Polarization of news diets over time: longitudinal evidence from a data-donation study

Kmetty, Zoltán and Stefkovics, Ádám and Bata, Emese and Váradi, Bendegúz and Parragi, Petra (2026) Polarization of news diets over time: longitudinal evidence from a data-donation study. FRONTIERS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE, 8. ISSN 2673-3145

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Abstract

Scholars and public observers increasingly worry that digital media environments promote the growth of massive online echo chambers. This rising political polarization is feared to erode a shared factual baseline and ultimately threaten democratic stability. To examine these pressing concerns, this study uses data donation to analyze how online news diets and audience segregation change over a five-year period. Our findings show that reading digital news remains a minor part of daily online activity, and intense interest in politics is limited to a small group of users. While moving from general news to political content increases ideological segregation, this selection mechanism remains weak and does not create closed echo chambers. Over time, online audience polarization shows a stable equilibrium rather than a runaway spiral toward fragmentation. This unique data donation framework allows us to overcome the short observation windows and self-reporting errors that usually limit research in this field. By collecting five years of retrospective individual trace data, this method offers a new way to separate temporary, event-driven reactions from long-term structural changes in browsing behavior. Ultimately, this dataset provides a fresh empirical tool to show that, within Google browsing activity, real-world online media choices appear to be shaped by stable habits rather than continuous fragmentation.

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